Media Room[1]
Directions to Operate Media Room Electronics
1. Overview – The Media Room contains the following electronic equipment:
a. PACE HDTV Brighthouse Cable Box (located on 4th shelf in Back Room)
b. Danon Progressive Scan DVD Player (located on 4th shelf in Back Room)
c. Marantz AV Surround Sound Receiver (located on 3rd shelf in Back Room)
d. Power Strip (located on 2nd shelf in Back Room)
e. AC Power Conditioner (located on 2nd shelf in Back Room)
f. Logitech Remote Control Unit (located on 3rd shelf in Back Room)
g. Logitech Radio Frequency (RF) to Infrared (IR) Unit (located on 4th shelf in Back Room) – Allows Logitech Remote Control Unit to operate in Media Room
h. LCD Projector (Located on ceiling in middle of Media Room)
i. Front Projection Screen for viewing DVDs and TV (Center of Media Room)
The only one of these you really need to know about is the Logitech Remote Control UnitJ
2. The Magic Control (The Logitech Remote Control Unit) – There is only one thing needed to control all this equipment. This is the Logitech Remote Control, now called the Magic Control. You need to go into the Back Room and take it from the Charger. This is the only thing you should ever touch. Please do not touch any of the equipment or any of the other individual remote controls. The Magic Control will automatically go on when it is touched (shaken, not stirredJ). When you are finished with the Magic Control, please return it to the charger, making sure the Charge light is on.
3. Insert DVD – While picking up the remote control in the Back Room, this is a good time to insert your DVD into the DVD Player. Simply push the Open/Close Button. The DVD tray pops out; place the DVD on the tray, shiny side down, and push the Open/Close Button. The DVD Player is now ready to be controlled by the Magic Control
4. About the Magic Control – The Magic Control is basically some hard buttons and a Touch Panel. The hard buttons include the System On/Off Control, the Basic Controls, and the Activities Button. The Touch Panel provides a number of soft buttons, so called as they are changeable by the software.
5. System On/Off Control – The entire system is turned on and off with the On/Off button located in the upper left hand corner of the Remote Control. Warning – Once the system is turned on, DO NOT TURN IT OFF UNTIL YOU ARE FINISHED WITH IT. The LCD Projector goes through a multi-minute cool down cycle and will not turn back on until it is cooled down. Attempts to turn the system on will result in the LCD Projector being off and all the other equipment on. You will have to enter the Maintenance Mode to get all the equipment resynchronized back to the on status. You probably don’t want to do this.
6. Basic Controls – The basic controls are located to the right of the touch screen. These are standard controls found on most remote controls. They include an up/down channel selector, an up/down volume control, last channel selector, the mute button, the navigation selector (up, down, left, right, with center OK), and next “>” and previous “<” controls.
7. Activities Button and Touch Panel – The Activities Button is located immediately under the Touch Panel. It is basically the gateway to doing any thing you want to do with the Touch Panel. When the Activities Button is pressed, the Touch Panel displays the main menu. This provides options for Watching DVD, Watching HDTV, going into the Help Mode, going Home (Green House Icon), or going into Maintenance Mode (White Wrench Icon).
8. Watching DVDs – Assuming that a DVD has been preloaded in the DVD Player and the system is powered on, all one has to do is select the Activities Button and then select the Watching DVD Soft Button. The DVD’s Main Menu is displayed on the Front Projection Screen. (If not see Help Section). Typical DVD controls are provided via the Touch Panel Soft Buttons. The DVD Menu provides options for selection of the Menu, Top Menu, Exiting, and Ejecting the DVD. It also provides the Play controls (Play, Pause, Fast Forward, Fast Reverse, Next Section, and Last Section). Selection of the “123” icon at the bottom left provides a numeric touchpad (most useful for changing channels while watching TV); Selection of the “Star” icon at the bottom right returns the standard Play Controls. There are a variety of DVD specific controls that may or may not be available on a given DVD or on different DVD Players. There are 2 menus of such auxiliary controls. The fist menu provides control of: Aspect, Page Up, Page Down, Clear, Angle, Zoom, Audio, Subtitle, and Disk Next. The second menu provides selection of up to 5 DVDs that might be in the DVD Player. Obviously this will be useless for our system as the Danon Progressive Scan DVD Player only controls one DVD at a time. There are also options to access the Devices Menu, placing you directly into the Maintenance Mode.
9. Watching HDTV - Assuming that the system is powered on, all one has to do is select the Activities Button and then select the Watching HDTV Soft Button. The Front Projection Screen displays the last selected TV channel. (If not see Help Section). Typical HDTV controls are provided via the Touch Panel Soft Buttons. The HDTV Menu provides options for selecting the Menu, Guide, Info, and Exit. The Menu or Guide Button provides the TV Guide under the Brighthouse System; the Info provides a synopsis of the program selected. It appears that the DVD Controls are also displayed on the Touch Panel with an option to record. These are the controls for a TiVo® digital recording device. This is probably not useful as we don’t have such a device in the System. It would be useful to select the “123” icon on the lower left corner to access a touch pad for entering the 3-digit number for a desired channel. The “STAR” icon can be selected to return the controls for the TiVo® device. Auxiliary Controls under Watch TV include: List, Aspect, A, B, C, Setting, Resolution, and Stretch. The A, B, and C controls are useful for using the Brighthouse Guide.
10. HDTV Channels – Under the Brighthouse System, the mostly free HDTV channels are in the 600s. These are sparsely populated with only channels 608, 609, 610, 611, 613, 616, 617, 618, 619, 624, 628, 629, 631, 632, 650 HDSP1, 651 HDSP2, 690, 691, 692, 693, and 694. The HDSP1 and HDSP2 channels require the purchase of a special sports package which is currently not available. Of the remaining 18, only 6 of these were actually broadcasting HDTV on the afternoon of 11 October. There are supposed to be 100 HDTV channels within a year. Still, if a network has low resolution material to broadcast, it will not be broadcast in HD even though it might be broadcast on a HD channel.
11. Help Mode – The Help Mode can be extremely useful to resynchronize the “Power-On” status of devices. As noted earlier, devices can get out of synchronization with their power. All needed systems should be powered on at the same time. Sometimes one component gets powered off. Perhaps it is automatically powered off if it is not initially used. The Help Mode will ask a set of questions regarding the system and try to re-power systems that are not responding. For example, a basic “Help Mode” question is: Is the projector on? (Select yes or no or cancel). Check to see if there are faint images in the upper left hand corner of the screen. If so, say “yes”. Then you might be asked: Is the Digital Set Top Box on? (Select yes or no or cancel). Select “no” and the Set Top Box will be recycled. Hopefully your responses to these questions can restore the system. Please remember that all devices take time to wake up, especially the LCD Projector.
12. Maintenance Mode and the Devices Menu – The Devices Menu provides internal control of each of the main devices in the system. The main items for selection are: DVD Player, Projector, AV Receiver (Marantz AV Surround Sound Receiver), and the Digital Set Top Box (PACE HDTV Brighthouse Cable Box). WARNING - DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES TO VALUES UNDER THE DEVICES MENU. Changes have already been made to optimize the system, so in general, changes may degrade performance. Also, changes to settings in this area may be permanent and subsequent users may experience substandard performance and not know why. It should be noted that one possible use might be to physically connect a video cable from a laptop to the LCD Projector in order to run a PowerPoint presentation or present a digital slide show. If so, the LCD Projector needs to be commanded to process this port by selecting “3” under Projector (“2” is default).
13. Light Switches for Media Room – The light switches for the Media Room are located to the left of the South Door. The switches, (from left to right) control the Overhead Lights, the Front Spot Lights, and the Side Wall Lights. Most users will want to turn off the Overhead Lights and the Front Spot Lights, leaving on the Side Wall Lights for Safety.
14. Directions to use Popcorn Popper – To be supplied by DianneJ